|
Someone asked in the fantasy dildo thread here if I was going to make a thread, so here we go. I'm Pile of Kittens and I worked for about nine months for a large producer of custom bondage rope. What is custom bondage rope? Well, for the most part it's just regular hemp rope that's been processed, slightly broken in, and dyed pretty colors. It also encompasses rope that is custom spun at the factory in small batches out of interesting materials like silk, rayon, jute, cotton, and sometimes includes interesting stuff like electroconductive thread or sparkly fiber for that elf bondage scene you've just been dying to try out. I worked entirely in the production floor, as my background in sewing gave me a basic foundation in fiber sciences. I will occasionally have to demur certain questions if the answer would contain "industry secrets" in use by the company I worked for. Apparently there's a fair amount of industrial espionage in the business, and I think that's more because of the type of people who get into this particular manufacturing niche than any kind of actual edge one process would give over another. The real advantages I brought to the hand-spun rope were from basic understanding of yarn and rope, and also from reading a couple old textbooks on how rope has been historically made. At any rate, I scrupulously avoided dealing with customers or other rope manufacturers because the "rope dom" personality type really doesn't mesh well with me, and it wasn't like I was going to make any situations better. I didn't really feel like registering a parachute account because I'm pretty open in my real life and online about my previous job working there. Here's a story to start us out. I was trying to trace the lineage of a cone of rayon yarn back to the manufacturer because we wanted to make a larger order than usual and the retail place that we generally went through couldn't manage it. Pile of Kittens posted:Supplier Rep
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2016 19:30
|
|
: Thanks for calling, how can I help you?
: Hey, I have here a cone of [blah blah blah technical stuff] yarn here that I'd like to order more of.
: Umm, (probably at this point becoming nervous about selling yarn to a ropemaker who claims to not care about how strong it is), what is the purpose of the rope?
: OOOOOHHHHH. I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS!!!
|
|
| # ? Apr 18, 2024 12:58 |
|
|
Isn't it hard to tie something as slippery as rayon? Did you ever try making silk ropes?
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2016 20:14
|
|
|
Electroconductive ropes? Da gently caress is that
|
|
#
?
Aug 24, 2016 21:52
|
|
|
What was the most popular color for your ropes?
|
|
#
?
Aug 25, 2016 05:02
|
|
|
Pile of Kittens posted:Someone asked in the fantasy dildo thread here if I was going to make a thread, so here we go. I'm Pile of Kittens and I worked for about nine months for a large producer of custom bondage rope. What do you do with seconds and can you send a bunch to me for free?
|
|
#
?
Aug 25, 2016 05:24
|
|
|
this just doesnt have the impact of the dildo thread without pictures
|
|
#
?
Aug 25, 2016 07:11
|
|
|
Arsenic Lupin posted:Isn't it hard to tie something as slippery as rayon? Did you ever try making silk ropes? I thought so, but apparently some people just didn't mind using high-friction knots. We did use a sort of lumpy/fuzzy silk to make some very nice but somewhat poofy rope. quote:Electroconductive ropes? Da gently caress is that Some people are into electric shock play, which is facilitated with purpose-made devices that definitely will not kill you. If you buy rope with electroconductive thread in it, you can send the zappy feeling through the rope, apparently to great effect. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to find footage of this if it exists. quote:What was the most popular color for your ropes? Black, followed by red. However, the limited run colors would sometimes sell almost as fast as the red. Others would hang around the shop morosely from years ago, wishing someone would buy them. quote:What do you do with seconds and can you send a bunch to me for free? They go to Burning Man to be given away as gifts.  There, you happy? Sorry, most rope looks the same, and I'd have to ask my ex-boss if I could use his photos, which could then be used to trace back to him, and I don't think either of us is comfortable with that. If you're interested in pictures of how people use the rope, once again I leave that as an exercise for the reader. Pile of Kittens fucked around with this message at 04:43 on Aug 26, 2016 |
|
#
?
Aug 25, 2016 07:29
|
|
|
that rope looks terribly uncomfortable. Why even make the thread if you are unwilling to tell what is asked except for the tamest stuff. I want to hear some juicy stories about terrible customers and getting gross returns that smell like butthole
|
|
#
?
Aug 25, 2016 12:09
|
|
|
Fauxtool posted:I want to hear some juicy stories about terrible customers and getting gross returns that smell like butthole Fauxtool posted:juicy ewwww
|
|
#
?
Aug 25, 2016 19:57
|
|
|
John Lee posted:ewwww moist, stinky, slick
|
|
#
?
Aug 25, 2016 20:24
|
|
|
Pile of Kittens posted:They go to Burning Man to be given away as gifts. Ok, but if you are going to give it away for free at Burning Man anyway, I'd like to have some for free.
|
|
#
?
Aug 26, 2016 04:31
|
|
|
Keg posted:Ok, but if you are going to give it away for free at Burning Man anyway, I'd like to have some for free. Sure, come pick it up at Burning Man. quote:that rope looks terribly uncomfortable. Why even make the thread if you are unwilling to tell what is asked except for the tamest stuff. No returns except in cases of factory defects, in which case we want to see the defects so we can track it back to its batch and maybe warn other customers. No "satisfaction guaranteed" type deal, because ew. I happily did not have to answer the phones except on rare occasions, but I did pick up the phone once in a while. For some reason it was always an officious-sounding guy demanding to talk to "the owner". I took great pleasure in blandly cutting them down and then answering their Extremely Important question (which was always "when is my rope coming, I ordered it two days ago, why isn't it here yet") myself, because you don't need to talk to the owner for that. The owner very much hated being bothered over administrivia, and mostly just wanted to hang out making rope all day. I did hear a fantastic voice mail from a southern woman who wanted rope to match her St. Andrew's Cross, which was "simply encrusted with glitter". She made my week.  This is a St. Andrew's Cross.
|
|
#
?
Aug 26, 2016 04:42
|
|
|
I have watched reenactors making rope in a ropewalk, and I've hand-twisted cords for embroidery using the same principle. (The latter are way, way less complicated than actual rope, I know.) What keeps a rope from untwisting under load if it's made from a smooth fiber? Or am I wrong that it's fiber-on-fiber friction that keeps a rope together?
|
|
#
?
Aug 26, 2016 07:18
|
|
|
Arsenic Lupin posted:I have watched reenactors making rope in a ropewalk, and I've hand-twisted cords for embroidery using the same principle. (The latter are way, way less complicated than actual rope, I know.) What keeps a rope from untwisting under load if it's made from a smooth fiber? Or am I wrong that it's fiber-on-fiber friction that keeps a rope together? This was actually a source of great woe for us before I started really researching the problem. Without going into trade secret details (  ) I can say that in general, the approaches taken by people who hand-spin flax, bamboo silk, and cotton are very useful. They have found that it's a matter of "training" the twist by spinning with wet hands.
|
|
#
?
Aug 26, 2016 12:27
|
|
|
You've mentioned not being too worried about tensile strength, I assume because you'd want to use climbing rope for suspension type activities. The picture you posted look like laid or twisted rope rather than braided or kernmantle, is most rope used for this kind of thing laid or twisted? Is that an aesthetic preference? I would think static kernmantle would be more suited to the task as it doesn't stretch or pull (not useful for restraint), wouldn't be shock-loaded (not load-bearing), and because the mantle could be made out of anything and decorated however while using a lower quality fiber for the core to reduce cost, but I'm not in the industry. Basically, tell me about your ropes.
|
|
#
?
Aug 26, 2016 15:33
|
|
|
Paramemetic posted:Basically, tell me about your ropes.
|
|
#
?
Aug 26, 2016 16:33
|
|
|
In my profession, we call it line. When my gf said she was into bondage, I just went to the hardware store and picked up about 50 feet of the cheapest stuff that didn't look like it would hurt (too much) and set it up in her bed. Great results. Why do people buy your rope?
|
|
#
?
Aug 26, 2016 22:01
|
|
|
Presumably for the same reason people don't gently caress bent over a hessian sack stuffed with straw. You can do it but some people prefer not to.
|
|
#
?
Aug 26, 2016 23:54
|
|
|
OwlFancier posted:Presumably for the same reason people don't gently caress bent over a hessian sack stuffed with straw. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find good hessians nowadays? I mean, the uniform alone.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2016 00:09
|
|
|
Presentation. It's not just restraint but also erotic macrame! See this (NWS) French artist for a ton of examples.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2016 01:51
|
|
|
Sage Grimm posted:Presentation. It's not just restraint but also erotic macrame! http://www.fredkyrel.com/-/galleries/photos/-/medias/ae63890d-2837-42ca-9ffe-500a0a514769 Is this one elvish? (or am I just such a huge goon that I think every foreign language is elvish?)
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2016 04:57
|
|
|
Looks like it to me.
|
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2016 07:17
|
|
|
Hey what a fantastic thread, I'm just getting into conditioning and dying my own rope as I'm getting awful sick of paying the premiums for rope that id rather have oiled and dyed to my tastes. Any recommendation on how to source a supplier for spools of raw 6mm jute? I've had a helluva time actually finding stuff that doesn't have some weird chemically treatment on the jute when it arrives. Kofi Annan fucked around with this message at 16:37 on Aug 27, 2016 |
|
#
?
Aug 27, 2016 16:07
|
|
|
Was your bird bound when it roasted on a radiator If so that's some choice rope 10/10 would buy
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2016 04:11
|
|
|
Welcome to GBS posted:In my profession, we call it line. It's genuinely comfy and I think it smells nice. It's also a conspicuous consumption thing, and rope doms tend to be extremely image-conscious. Sorry, I'm phone posting so I can't easily do multiple quotes, but we actually never did find a good jute supplier while I was there. However, look up how to "chain" rope - when it's bundled like that you can wash it until the sizing comes off. The rope was twisted with as even ply/counterply as we could manage. We used Z-twist for the plying pass mostly for convenience in whipping the ends because we were all right handed. Trust me, it's a lot easier. This is how we bound up the ends of the vast majority of the rope pieces we sold. It took up half my day and I was very fast at it. http://www.animatedknots.com/sailmakers/#ScrollPoint
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2016 04:36
|
|
|
Did you learn and practice any rope knots other than what went into making the rope? If so, which ones were your favorites?
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2016 04:53
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 18, 2024 12:58 |
|
|
Faerunner posted:Did you learn and practice any rope knots other than what went into making the rope? If so, which ones were your favorites? Not in particular, but I've always been fond of the figure eight knot, which is not useful for rope bondage but is pleasingly symmetrical and useful for climbing.
|
|
#
?
Aug 31, 2016 09:29
|
|